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Monday, April 10, 2017

Nursery in the Making

We have spent a lot of time over the past two weekends working on former guest room turned nursery and I'm happy to say we both agree the hard work paid off. I think I've heard Ben say every day since we started painting, "man, this looks awesome".

Nursery before; aka blue gu

Our house was built in 1908, so nothing is flat, nothing is level and walls certainly aren't smooth. The picture above was strategically taken to hide those imperfections. If you were to look up, this is the ceiling.

Hideous, right? It's worse in person! When we first bought the house in Feb 2014, we paid someone to come out replace drywall ceiling of the main living/dining room. We also got quotes to correct the two guest bed ceilings (the above is certainly the worst of the two) but decided not to spend money at the time.

As soon as we found out we were pregnant, I told Ben, we have GOT to fix that ceiling. So we again got drywall quotes and unfortunately they hadn't magically lowered over the past three years ($1,200 to fix ONE room's ceiling; what?!). I have to confess, I was desperate enough to say let's suck it up and pay but Ben called me crazy.

Enter Plan B. Spring 2015 we had the exterior of the house painted and new gutters installed. When we were in Chicago, it seemed like every porch ceiling was wood. We loved the look but hadn't seen much of in it Denver. My father-in-law is much more handy than we are, so Ben and I stained and sealed tongue and groove pine then during once of their visits, my father-in-law and I installed the wood for the porch ceiling.

So we came up with the idea of trying to install a similar ceiling in the nursery. Thankfully my father-in-law said it was doable and we lined up the project to take place when they came to visit this February for our nephew's birthday. When we initially started talking about the project, I think MIL and FIL thought we were off our rocker, but by the time they got here, they knew about the pregnancy so it made more sense as to why we wanted it done.

I was still living in Vail at the time, so I can't say the guys were happy to see me when I walked in Friday afternoon (per my MIL's progress texts during the week, there was a lot of cursing). Between Ben and my FIL, I think there was a lot of frustration, but the result is absolutely perfect (not to mention, a fraction of the price). To install, they first located the floor joists for the level above and then put up fur strips. This allowed the tongue and groove to have something to secure to. I cannot thank them enough for their hard work!

Next step, paint. I'd always envisioned a primarily gray and white nursery, which goes along perfectly with our decision to wait to find out the gender. However, finding a true gray proved to be quite the challenge. We put up seven samples, all from Sherwin Williams: (shown in order of) Repose Gray, Agreeably Gray, Worldly Gray, Light French Gray, Knitting Needles, Olympus White, and Lazy Gray.

We were told by SW that Light French Gray was the only "true", black/white mix gray (the first color on the left in the picture of four). Strangely enough, it appeared beige to us. We thought we had our decision made after putting samples up on the blue wall. However, there was a ton of prep work needed to sand out old cracks and fill divots (we're talking days and hours), so it made sense to work on wall prep and prime. After priming, we'd put samples back up to make the final decision. I'm glad we did!

I put the first coat of samples up Friday night. Saturday morning Ben came in while I was working on sample coat two and he said I already know which I like...thankfully it was the same color I wanted! We mutually agreed upon Olympus White. (Originally we liked lazy gray, but then it seemed to dark once the primer was up). So Saturday and Sunday were spent painting!

Furniture was ordered today (ahh! it's getting more and more real) and white crown molding will go up in the next month. Meanwhile, I might just sit on the floor and take in what's already become my new favorite room in the house :)